Text from the Indicator Report 2021
The indicator shows the proportion of children for whom daily care of more than seven hours’ duration has been arranged. This defined length of time may differ from the actual duration of care of which parents avail themselves. Contractually agreed childcare provision of seven hours and less, which can likewise make work and family life more compatible, and additional types of care such as day care at private homes are not included in the indicator. Information about childcare services for children aged six and older is also relevant to this topic. Such supplementary information is provided, for example, by data from the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (see the last section).
The information for these indicators is taken from the annual statistics of the Federal Statistical Office on children and employees in child daycare centres. In 2020, all-day care in child daycare centres had been arranged for 47.6% of children aged 3 to 5 (kindergarten age). This means that the proportion of 3 to 5-year old children receiving all-day care increased by 25.6 percentage points since 2006 and had therefore more than doubled. The target of 60% which was set for 2020 was not achieved. For children under three (nursery age), the proportion is about 17.1%. All-day care provision for children under three years of age, in other words, increased by 11.2 percentage points from 2006 to 2020 and hence almost trebled.
The absolute number of children below the age of six receiving all-day care in child daycare centres came to about 1.53 million in 2020. Another 67,385 children below six years of age were receiving publicly subsidised childminder care; like those five-year-old children who are already at school, they are not covered by the indicator. In addition, in 2020 some 1.3 million children were receiving part-time care of seven hours or less.
More than a quarter of the children aged below six receiving care in daycare centres or publicly subsidised childminder care in 2019 had a migration background, meaning that they had at least one parent of foreign origin. The care rate for these children was 50%, while the rate for children with no migration background was around 70%.
The percentages of children enrolled in daycare centres differs sharply between the old Länder and the new Länder. The highest full-time care rates for 0 to 2-year-olds are recorded in the new Länder and in Berlin. The figures range from 50.3% in Thuringia to 9.9% in Baden-Württemberg. For 3 to 5-year-olds, the highest percentage of all-day care – 92.2% – is also found in Thuringia, while Baden-Württemberg has the lowest ratio of 25.2% (both 2020).
In terms of childcare facilities for schoolchildren, after-school care centres and all-day schools also play an important role. In 2020, a total of 20,200 children between 5 and 13 years of age were cared for on an all-day basis in after-school care centres, while about 492,600 children received part-time care in those centres; classroom time is not counted as care time. In 2018/2019 school year, of all pupils enrolled in schools providing a general education, 45.0% were in school all day. This figure, however, encompasses pupils at all stages of schooling, including pupils who are older than 13. In the same school year, 42.2% of the children in primary schools received all-day care. In comparison with 2006, the number of all-day pupils had risen sharply by 2018, from almost 1.5 million to 3.3 million in all schools providing a general education and from 400,000 to around 1.2 million in primary schools alone.
